The Fantastic Shakespeare: Character’s Passionary Confocality in the Aspect of Reception.
Abstract
Based on J. Baudrillard’s methodology on the beginning
of the era of hyperreality as the “world of simulation”, the article under
discussion substantiates the expansion of science fiction horizons by
means of “reversing the imaginary”. The latter notion is mostly marked
with the inter-penetration of fictional worlds, which are genealogically
revealed only in their connection with new genre forms. Particular
emphasis in the “hyperreal indifference” of science fiction narratives has
been laid on intertextual ties. The article updates the issue of
intertextual potential of the personosphere of science fiction and fantasy,
which, according to Tz. Todorov, presupposes “reader’s active
integration into the world of characters”. In this way, the specifics of
including the “fantasy” characters of Shakespeare’s plays into the
intertextual space of science fiction has been analyzed.
Much attention has been paid to the figure of William
Shakespeare as a character in literary texts by American science fiction
writer Clifford Simak (1904–1988) “The Goblin Reservation” (1968)
and “Shakespeare’s Planet” (1976). Another emphasis has been laid on
the peculiarities of synthesizing science fiction and fantasy that form the
so-called “simulative hyperreality” by means of combining several models
of personosphere – fairy, fantastic, fantasy, mystical, and other – in the
creative activities of C. Simak. They function in accordance with the
principle of combining the image fields, whose imagological vectors are
constantly intersecting with each other. What is more, the personosphere
has been attracted not by the protagonist, but by some confocal figure (a
sage or a sentinel, according to C. Jung), who is absolutely neutral, however
has a reliable “point of view”, thus winning reader’s receptive trust.
In this case, W. Shakespeare is regarded as a confocal and, at the same
time, passionary character, for he is presented as an imaginative nucleus of a
personosphere, and not only as an intertextual phantasm (according to
R. Barthes) or an atroponimic allusion. Therefore, this “penetration” of
Shakespeare into science fiction may be considered as an essential
intertextual ideologeme (according to J. Kristeva). Entering the world of
other characters, his passionary status pushes away the center of the
personosphere, thus generating the development of plot events. This is why
the chronotope version, suggested by the American writer (whereby
realistic, fantastic, fantasy and even mystical characters coexist quite
peacefully), stands out as rather logical for Shakespeare’s timeless image,
whose idiorhythmic nature is able to fit any context, ironically refuting the
so-called “Shakespeare’s Question”. The article under studies also points out
Shakespeare’s interrelations with a mystical anthropomorphic character
Spirit, whose “traces” (in J. Derrida’s interpretation) frequently “run into”the
figure of Shakespeare. Hence, it might be concluded that Shakespeare’s
immanent presence strengthens the integrity of a literary text, as well as
denounces the inferiority of its function in the personosphere, whereas in
the aspect of reception, it intercepts the readers’ attention, shifting away the
rest of the imaginative centers of the novel.